Digital diplomacy
[12] Digital diplomacy can be practiced by state agencies such as Foreign Ministries, embassies and consulates, individual diplomats such as ambassadors or ambassadors-at-large, and non-state actors such as civil society and human rights groups.
Although there is no generally accepted definition, "in this report, we consider 'cyber diplomacy' to be efforts that support U.S. interests in cyberspace internationally, led by the Department of State.
"[14] Indeed, the new CDP bureau brings together the many disparate initiatives set up under the Obama Administration under the hyphenated term United States cyber-diplomacy encompassing Hillary Clinton's 21st century statecraft.
[1] Sweden has also been active in promotion of digital diplomacy, especially through the online communication strategy of its foreign minister Carl Bildt who soon became 'best connected Twitter leader'.
The study on Twiplomacy [18] found that there were 264 Twitter accounts of heads of state and government and their institutions in 125 countries worldwide and that only 30 leader's tweet personally.
The initiative evolved into informal online campaigns under the umbrella #DiplomacyUnited, coordinating the work of a dozen embassies in Washington, D.C.[24] According to the Twiplomacy Study 2020, published in July 2020, 98 percent of UN member states had a diplomatic presence on Twitter.
[28] This method of diplomacy provides additional avenues for other actors to engage in co-creation with influential people and organizations on multilateral diplomatic campaigns.
[29] An example of this would be the 2012-2014 Campaign to End Sexual Violence in Conflict launched by then British foreign secretary William Hague, which used a multi-channel digital and offline approach to engage UN organizations as well as states.
[32] Digital platforms have also enabled the spread of disinformation used to undermine states’ international and domestic stability, such as the interference of the Russian government in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
